Tuesday, February 17, 2009

LIFE OF MY FATHER - 6

EARLY LIFE

My father was reserved and also reticent about personal things. He had a stoical approach to life. In his view, people should tough it out during difficult times. Display of strong emotion or "showing off" to him would be inappropriate. He hated irresponsibility and had even higher expectations of himself than of others. Though he was a kind and sympathetic person, he rarely expressed affection and was hard to get close to. For example, I can't remember him ever telling me something of a personal nature about his childhood. He took his responsibility as a father very seriously, but in today's terms, would have been considered very old-fashioned.

I have very little first-hand knowledge of my father's early life. From my mother I know that for a long time the family lived largely on fish they caught in Lesser Slave Lake, located north of Edmonton and east of Grande Prairie. For the rest of his life my father refused to eat fish. On the positive side, he had a lifelong love of the outdoors and of the North. The family's financial misfortune and the Great Depression which began when he was 17 years old help to explain his frugal life style and his refusal to take on any debt except for a mortgage.The photos are of Lesser Slave Lake in northern Alberta and my father with his tent.